Jim and Anne Wermers: Taking Care of Borrego

Two neighbors, one town, and years of giving back

On January 27, 2010, a trustee's sale was held in El Cajon for the empty grocery store on Christmas Circle. The building had been closed for almost three years. The minimum bid was $372,346.65. Only two people showed up for it: the former owner, Richard Tynan, and a Borrego Springs developer named Jim Wermers.

Nobody bid. The building went back to Tynan, and most people would have walked away. Jim didn't. Nine months later he had a deal to save it, and the idea behind that deal would shape the next fifteen years of downtown Borrego Springs.

Coming to Borrego

Jim and Anne Wermers first came to Borrego as builders. In 1992 they put up Desert Shadows, a 20-home community at de Anza, and then decided to make Borrego Springs their home.

Jim has a degree in philosophy. He worked as a carpenter to pay off his student loans and spent two years traveling the world before he settled into a career in construction. Anne has a master's degree in counseling emotionally disturbed adolescents and gave career counseling to women going back to school at Grossmont College. She later earned her commercial real estate broker's license and built a career selling investment property.

When they arrived, Jim remembered, "I thought, 'Look at all these elderly people. They look so healthy, bright and happy. We must have found the Fountain of Youth.'"

But many of the buildings downtown were run down, and most of them were owned by people who didn't live in Borrego.

"It feels bigger than it really is"

By 2010 Jim was secretary of the Borrego Village Association, a new group formed with a grant from County Supervisor Bill Horn to revive the downtown core. He led its committee on Palm Canyon Drive.

He had a clear view of the problem. The main street was so wide it looked like a "landing strip," he told a public meeting that April. "People don't walk around in our downtown area very much because it feels bigger than it really is."

The fix he and architect Richard Orne sketched out was simple: shade trees, crosswalks, pocket parks on empty lots, and places for people to stop and stay. Jim even applied to the county to finish 525 feet of missing sidewalk on the north side of Palm Canyon Drive.

He owned an empty lot of his own, just west of Jilberto's, where he had planned to build a new shop building. New county flood rules made that impossible. So he offered to lease the lot to the Village Association for $1 a year and turn it into a gathering spot. "We need places to congregate, shade, and boulders to sit on," he said.

Getting people to come to meetings was hard. Getting them to give was not. When a mailing for the tree project brought in more than $7,000 in donations, many of them from outside Borrego, Jim was stunned. "That's amazing," he said. "Only four people show up for a meeting but 60 mail money in."

In April 2011 the trees started going in along the south side of Palm Canyon Drive, including on Jim's lot. Today they are the shade you walk under downtown.

Saving the corner

The old market on Christmas Circle was the building everyone wanted saved. Designed by mid-century modern architect William Kesling, who also designed the Desert Club, it had been a grocery store since 1949. Jim called it the oldest commercial building in Borrego Springs. By 2010 it was empty and falling apart.

Anne remembered what they found. "It was a mess, windows and doors were boarded up; it was filled with rat and pigeon droppings; there was a dirt floor in the rear, and the place smelled terrible."

After the failed auction, Jim spent months quietly working out a deal with Tynan. He kept it to himself because, he said, he didn't want to raise the town's hopes again unless the county would actually allow the work. He had already paid for the engineering. "The engineering has been done, and costs have been incurred," he said.

In October 2010 he made it public. Jim would give $150,000 to the Borrego Art Institute for a down payment on the $365,000 building. The art institute would own it, collect rent from tenants and pay off the rest over time.

Jim also had a plan for the future. "Once paid off," he said, "the building could become a source of community-improvement funding." Rent from the old grocery could pay for more trees, signs and pocket parks for the whole town.

Another buyer showed interest around the same time. Jim said he wasn't interested in a bidding war. Tynan chose the art institute. "I like what is going on with this group and their effort to improve Borrego," he said.

It took eight months to get county permits. By the summer of 2011, Jim had pledged $400,000 to the project through a fund he set up at the San Diego Foundation, which he said he created while looking for a project that inspired him. "The money has been funded," he said. "This should add life back to that end of the community."

During the work they got a lucky break: they found Kesling's original plans. "We had already started work on the renovation, but stopped, and changed the construction plans to follow Kesling's vision as much as possible," Jim said. The rock wall facing Christmas Circle came down and the tall windows went back in.

The old grocery became the home of the Borrego Art Institute. In 2016 Kesling's Kitchen opened in the front, named for the architect. Out back came an art farm, a fruit orchard and community gardens where neighbors rent plots and schoolkids learn where food comes from. In 2024 the art institute named its gallery the McQuown/Wermers Gallery. "Without the kindness and generosity of these two families, the Borrego Art Institute as we know it would not exist," said Executive Director Steve Fisher.

The Mall and The Center

In 2014 the owners of The Mall, who had lost interest in Borrego, asked the Wermers if they wanted to buy it. They did. Two years later they bought The Center across the street.

Both needed a lot of work, and Jim was often out there himself. In 2016 the Sun caught him managing the crew pouring new ramps at The Mall and noted that he "may have picked up a shovel." Over the next several years the couple:

• connected The Center to the public sewer
• pulled out four old 10,000-gallon fuel tanks from a former gas station
• rebuilt the parking lots, curbs and sidewalks, and added shade trees
• put new roofs on The Center, with more than 500 solar panels
• added ramps, accessible parking and new restrooms
• improved the Performing Arts Center and rebuilt the fountain
• installed Dark Sky lighting that protects Borrego's night sky

Jim said they spent more on the upgrades than they paid for the properties. The payoff was the people who moved in. "What excites me the most is that locals, people and families that live in Borrego, are opening businesses for the first time," he said.

When a vandal smashed nine windows at The Mall in 2022, causing about $20,000 in damage, Jim said, "It's really a shame that this person damaged these places that are so important to our town, but despite that, I do feel sorry for him. Let's put it back together."

Feeding Borrego

In the spring of 2020, the pandemic shut down most of the jobs in town. The Wermers and their friends Thomas and Jeanne Fredericks decided to help.

"We knew that being without income would be a tremendous hardship for many families and we were determined to do something to help," Anne said.

It began as a one-time gift of food for their own workers' families. It grew quickly. Every week, volunteers packed boxes of beans, rice, masa, eggs, fresh fruit, vegetables and tortillas in the old library space at The Mall. Jim and Anne drove to La Mesa on weekends to shop for the best prices, and Anne kept the books. By summer they were feeding about 150 families.

"Individually we can each do our part; together we are making a difference," Anne said.

That effort grew into the Borrego Springs Community Resource Center, with a food pantry, free legal help, computers, counseling and job training. The Wermers paid half the rent for its space. At its peak, Jim said, the food bank served more than 250 families a week, about a quarter of the town.

They also saved the Frugal Coyote thrift shop when it was about to close in 2021. They reopened it, kept careful books and gave every dollar of profit to local nonprofits, including $24,000 to the Children's Center in the first three months. In 2023 they gave the shop to the Borrego Valley Endowment Fund.

No traffic lights

In 2021 the Chamber of Commerce named Jim and Anne Borrego's first-ever Co-Honorary Mayors. The vote was unanimous.

Anne knew exactly what the job was. "I know my job – making sure there are no traffic lights in Borrego." Outgoing Honorary Mayor Andy Macuga handed them the town's only stoplight, a gag gift, and they promised it would never go up on a road while they were in office. In 2022 they traveled to Khovd, Mongolia, Borrego's sister town, with two new Borrego High graduates and Martha Deichler.

The grand experiment

On November 15, 2023, Jim and Anne gave The Center to the Borrego Valley Endowment Fund. The property, worth more than $2.5 million, is home to the Center Market, the Performing Arts Center, the Frugal Coyote and Pablito's. It is one of the largest gifts in the town's history.

It was the same idea Jim had described thirteen years earlier for the old grocery on Christmas Circle, just much bigger. A building owned by the community, earning rent, paying for the community, forever.

"No one is going to live forever," Jim said. "But we would like to see this property provide financial support for the community in perpetuity. This is what I have been referring to as the grand experiment."

Anne admitted she needed some convincing. "When Jim first presented this idea, I thought he was completely bonkers. But after my smooth-talking husband explained the concept, I was totally sold."

At a reception in their honor, more than 100 people gave them a standing ovation. Anne talked about what she hopes lasts. "We are surrounded by natural beauty here. I hope future generations will continue to enjoy it and that we all will continue to preserve and improve what we all love about Borrego Springs."

Two years later

On November 15, 2025, two years to the day after the gift, friends gathered at the Performing Arts Center to unveil a plaque honoring Jim and Anne. A break in the rain let the crowd fill the lobby and the covered walkway. Pablito's catered, and guitarist Luis Villegas played.

Miss Borrego and the Borrego Springs Princesses unveiled the plaque. BVEF President Dr. David Garmon talked about what the gift has made possible, including a new Community Endowment to support programs across the valley for years to come.

Then came the fun part. Marjorie Schuessler, who dresses as Wonder Woman every Halloween for the Trunk or Treat at The Mall, gave Jim a Superman cape and costume, and he put the cape right on.

That's Jim. He is serious when it comes to business and light-hearted at the same time.

Jim and Anne Wermers join Sylvia Maas of Bike 4 Borrego Kids, in the shark costume, at the Trunk or Treat at The Mall on Halloween 2025.

Turning the town around

When longtime residents Stuart and Bonnie Resor left Borrego for Virginia in 2013, they wrote a goodbye letter thanking the people who mattered to them. One line thanked "the Wermers and many others for turning the Town around."

What they would want from us

Jim has always given the credit to the community.

"It's community cooperation that gets things done," he said. "Even the smallest contribution has a big impact in such a small, interdependent community."

We didn’t ask Jim and Anne what they would want from Borrego. But their own words give a pretty good idea. Jim believes in community cooperation and that even the smallest contribution makes a difference. Anne hopes we will all keep preserving and improving what we love about Borrego Springs. Maybe the best way to thank them is to do just that.

This story comes from the Borrego Sun Archives. There are many more stories of Jim and Anne's giving, kindness, friendship, dedication and encouragement that aren't told here. If you know them, you know the list is endless.

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